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Posts: 31
| Has anyone tried to make a mold made of aluminum on a 3D printer for pouring resin into it. A 2 piece mold would be nice. I was just looking at printers and the prices are down, can't say if they can do the job, that's why I am asking.
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| Most 3d Printers don't print aluminum. It's usually some type of abs plastic. You need a printer that has a high powered laser to melt the aluminum powder.,unless things have changed recently?
Edited by mnmusky 3/30/2016 4:33 PM
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Posts: 31
| Thanks it was a thought. |
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Posts: 54
| A friend of mine runs a small soft plastic bait company that uses a lot of 3d printed molds made of polyethylene in combination with a low melt temp plastic for the baits.
I borrowed one of their old molds to see if it would work with 2 part resin and it does very nicely. I did use a paintable release agent during the test just as I do with silicone molds. With polyethylene as the mold substrate, I'm not sure release agent would ultimately be necessary, but I figured better safe than sorry, especially with a mold that didn't belong to me.
Now to figure out how to convince the wife she needs a 3d printer...
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| It would work, you could pour resin into a ABS like 3D printed mold. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm going too. Aluminum molds are nice because you can warm them and they retain heat. But it should work with a plastic mold too. People are 3d printing cavity and core blocks for injection molding with success. The technology does exist to "print" metals using a laser sintering process, but I have no friends who own them and I'm not paying for one of those machines... |
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Posts: 1100
| I tried injection moulding plastisol into a 2 part mold made on a stratasys SEplus 3d printer, it worked ok, but the finish is #*#*, the mold would need some kind of treatment to work properly, haven't gotten around to play any more with it. |
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Posts: 1169
Location: New Hope MN | Check out protolabs.com Pick a resin that has a high glass transition temperature. You'll be fine with the two part resin. |
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